Suzi, Seattle, WA I am white and grew up surrounded by whiteness. I was oblivious to what it meant to be non-white; to the fact that I did not see my own race, but only those of others. I have fairly become so much more aware of what my whiteness means in this society, and […]
Trying to Navigate, Willing to Fight
Donna Scott, Seattle, WA. I’m passionate about social justice, but I sense the amount of space that I take up, as a white person. I noticed race early on (I’m thinking I noticed it in Kindergarten, I was one of two white kids at my school of ~300) and I’ve been trying my best to […]
Running for the freedom in myself.
Bob Preston, Seattle, WA. On Location: Seattle Community Colleges I thought of this while being told about this project, immediately, and since it has helped me through my transition back to my regular life from military life.
White privilege was actual, palpable relief
Xacu Seattle, WA The country we came from views us as bad and wrong. We were conquered, killed, and hated. Laws were made against us, we were disallowed to speak our own language, forced to speak theirs. When I say hunted, I mean there were death squads sent out by the government that took 21,000+ […]
We all hurt in different ways.
Christine Farrell, Naches, WA. My dad was an Italian/Irishman who grew up in the Bronx and Harlem areas of New York City. He grew up tough and he grew up mean. He was the only white kid in many of the schools he attended. He was involved in gangs, had been in and out of […]
Light, bright and damn near white
Antoinette Malveaux, Seattle, WA.
Ashamed that accomplished minorities surprise me.
Daniel Robbins, Seattle, WA. No matter how liberal and progressive I might claim to be, no matter how many workshops I’ve been to or essays I’ve read about privilege, I still hear my inner voice express pleasant surprise when I see a minority doing well at something. Whether I see a minority excelling in business, […]
White mom raised strong black woman
Rochelle, Seattle, WA.
Breaking the stereotype black male nurse
Chris Porter Seattle, WA History and TV have provided many roles, mostly negative, for black males. Our society rarely sees black men in the role of care taker or nurse, providing nursing care and in the role of leader particularly in a female dominated profession. It has been my life’s mission to tear down that […]
One white, one brown, same parents.
Adana, Seattle, WA. I have 2 children. My son looks just like his papa: dark, wavy hair and alabaster skin. My daughter looks like me: golden skin and curly brown hair. When I’m out with my son, I’m asked if I’m his nanny. When I’m out with both kids, I’m asked if they have the […]
The color of Freedom is Green
Kylee Robinson, Seattle, WA.
I will never really ‘get it’.
Celia Beasley, Seattle, WA. Being an upper-middle class white woman, I know I will never truly understand what it feels like to be a person of color in America. Despite my attempts to be aware of racism in this county through conversations, news stories, interviews, books, this website, etc, I know that I will never […]
Pick ’em up & lay ’em down.
Anonymous, Seattle, WA. My five-month-old Ameri-Kenyan daughter and I were part of a group of 300 Americans with the National Parks Service who commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights March. For five days, we marched from Selma to Montgomery. She rode just over my heart, clapping and singing as we went.
My whiteness gets in the way.
Julianna, Seattle, WA. I have wished I was biracial everyday so I could better help with the issues. How can I help now?
Deconstructing “whiteness” won’t change my skin.
Mariel Rieland, Seattle, WA. I’m about as stereotypically European-American as you can get… Born to an upper-middle-class family, raised in the suburbs, graduating from a private Christian university. And yet, I’m a sociology major who studies systematic social inequality for a living. I’ve learned how to deconstruct the broken systems of race, gender, and class […]
¿Eres mexicana? Entonces, ¿por qué el disfraz?
Maria Seattle, WA You’re Mexican? Then why the disguise? I was asked this by a viejito selling his wares in Tijuana, México, probably about 20 years ago. He had been shocked to hear me speak Spanish. I would of been in my early 20s, all rebellious with punked out bleached blond hair, red converse & […]
Progressives destroyed race relations in America.
Stacey Seattle, WA The Civil Rights movement was hijacked by progressives. Since that time, they have destroyed Dr. King’s “Dream”. The virtual enslavement of the near-entirety of America’s black populace to the statist ideological plantation is destroying any hope of reconciling the differences between majority & minority. No longer is a man encouraged to exhibit […]
Parents gave me Confederate flag: protection
Steve Morris, Seattle, WA. In the mid-1950s my father made a business trip from our home in Connecticut to Florida and back. He decided to make the trip by car, and to take my mother, my brother, and me along with him for a family travel experience. In the Deep South I witnessed undisguised segregation […]
Obstacle course meets me every day
SLTR Seattle, WA I was raised in a white protestant homogenous family. From the time I was young, my curiosity led me to friends of other colors, races, personalities…anything new. In my 40’s I find myself with a Mexican husband, in a profession where I constantly learn and teach in a petri dish of races, […]
(There are) Black people who like metal music
Azel Praer, Seattle, WA.
Norwegian with nappy hair doesn’t fit.
WilmaS, Seattle, WA. If I had a dollar for every time I was asked if my sons were adopted…It’s happened a lot. A complete stranger approaches my family, usually in a grocery store or some other public location, and compliments me on my family. “Your sons are so handsome,” the person will say, and by […]
So much work to be done.
Jen Davison, Seattle, WA. I am White. When I voted for Obama I said “I don’t see color.” Well, I do now–and I feel ashamed and flabbergasted that I’d not realized my privilege before. Trying my best to dismantle my own White-Supremacy beliefs and behaviors and to be an ally–or at least to hurt people […]
Turning away costs us almost everything
Jessica H, Seattle, WA. A society which chooses to live with such oppression and misery becomes a society without trust or hope: a nation of desperate confidence men hoping they too will not be nothing, despised, a thing without hope.
Is it wrong to hate Mexicans?
Jessica, Seattle, WA. I moved to a nice, peacefully safe area. First there was just a few illegal Mexicans but it’s changed. We made it easy for them by giving them free money, food, schooling. I hate them. I don’t like the Mexican culture, mannerisms,beliefs,..everything….is it so wrong to prefer not to like them. Why […]
Race can mean nothing, or everything.
Stephen Mai, Seattle, WA. Race to some can just be a dirty word, used to victimize themselves and create more barriers and problems, where as race to another person can literally mean how society treats them
I am black and a target
Chris Porter, Seattle, WA. It is hard for me to think about living in a country where my life seems to have little value. It is hard to think about living in a country that is the envy of so many around the world and yet I am not part of that envy. It is […]
Take a wild guess …
Anonymous, Seattle, WA.
I’m not white, I’m peachy-pink.
Alyce Gatlin, Seattle, WA. I like to put the “unity” in community. I want to listen, listen, and listen to people. Together we can find our commonalities and learn about our differences. There is no discussion between us and them … only WE can have a conversation.
I never experienced racism until now.
Christopher, Seattle, WA. I was born in the US in the late sixties, I am Caucasian, and I had not even once experienced any form or racism, whatsoever, until I was in my later 20s. I am 50 year old now, and I have only seen that racism against whites in the black community has […]
I grew up in the 98118
Guy Godefroy , Seattle, WA. Submitted via Twitter: @mrfatlace Additional information for the 6-WORD ESSAY: http://southseattle.komonews.com/ news/arts-culture/ 445093-census-bureau-98118-most-diverse-zip-code-us
Trouble is, maybe I’m a racist.
Matthew Hartter, Seattle, WA. The feeling of uselessness leads to a desire for superiority.
We thought you didn’t speak English.
Gabriela Denise Frank, Seattle, WA. Despite being a Detroit native who grew up in Arizona, I was mostly surrounded by white kids like me during my childhood. Though my family is Jewish, I never experienced discrimination while living in predominately Christian communities. Even as an adult in Seattle, which is more ethnically diverse, I live […]
Deliberately deviant to preserve white privilege
Marcos Cu, Seattle, WA. I would prefer to write about diversity instead of someone else’s prejudices. For example the Mayan’s mathematical wonders architectures. The Kwakwa ka’wakw Pacific Northwest Coast people, totem poles monumental sculptures, the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s literature thus we talk about what matters not what put us down.
Asian: Discounted everywhere but HR reports
My experience Seattle, WA People say “reassuring” discounting things like “I never think of Asians as people of color, you’re like white people with funny eyes.” and operate using stereotypical assumptions believing they are operating “color-blind”. In most workplaces recognition of racial diversity is limited to certain days of celebration and when it makes HR […]
You do not look INSERT RACE
Jamie M. Young, Seattle, WA. Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges I was born in Subic Bay, Philippines at the former U.S. Naval Base. My father is from Minnesota (of Norwegian/Irish decent), and my mother is from Minuhang, Leyte, Philippines. I am mixed race, but I have fair skin and […]
Proud white son, loving Chicano family
JB Tellez, Seattle, WA. All my remembered life I have been fortunate enough to be raised by a loving chicano father (and grandmother, great grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins too!) Here’s a picture with my abuela/grandmother and primo/cousin. She called me ‘Jonny Ojos Azules’ (Jonny Blue Eyes). Sometimes people will be surprised when I tell […]
Race doesn’t exist; other’s cultures enlighten.
Fleetwood Wilson, Seattle, WA.
Invisible African American immigrant Chinese son
Nic Rossouw, Seattle, WA. My son and I are both immigrants. I left apartheid South Africa in 1983. My family are white Africans who have lived in South Africa since the 16th century, only a few of my cousins and I have left. I sometimes half jokingly call myself African-American, but it is not really […]
I can pass, my Mom can’t.
Katy S., Seattle, WA.
I have no heritage or culture.
Mara Sobotka, Seattle, WA. It is true, and my heart is irreparably broken.
Never realized I identified as “White.”
Maria Anderson, Seattle, WA.
No, I’m not like Lucy Liu.
Clare Chun, Seattle, WA. I’m an aspiring actress and filmmaker. Whenever I share this with others, every so often I get hit with, “Oh like that Lucy Liu girl!” First off, I am Korean American and she is Chinese American, secondly, we don’t look or act anything alike. Yes, as shocking as this sounds, we […]
Wow, so you speak African right?
Yasmin Igal, Seattle, WA. Africa is a huge continent made of 1000s of languages and assuming I speak African because I’m Somali doesn’t makes no sense whats-ever. Born in America and being raised here, children use to ask me that and i thought it was a joke, but sadly it was a legit question for […]
Seven ways to think about race
Fa’aumu Kaimana Elsea, Seattle, WA. The 7. One of the more dangerous routes in King County Metro’s transit system. Never mind that, it’s the stigmas that’s brought about by this statistic. Are we unconsciously becoming afraid of the people in that route when after all, we are just ordinary transit riders?
Yes I am her real mom.
Molly Daggett, Seattle, WA.
Blackanese is not Black or Japanese.
Brian Murray, Seattle, WA. Growing up it was always hard to find my own identity because I came from a bi-racial background. I am half Black and half Japanese and always had problems being accepted by either racial group because of my uniqueness. Although coming from a low-income housing development called the Rainier Vista Projects […]
Can you help me with math?
Samantha, Seattle, WA. I’m an Asian American woman who gets this all the time. Throughout high school, people assumed that because I was Asian, I should be smart. Most times I laughed it off, but that’s allowing the stereotype to live on. It’s interesting to look back and see how other Asians in my year […]
Self Identifying as Black
Heather, Seattle, WA. I grew up as a black female in the US and I’m happy with that. Why are we now expected to identify as African-American? Is this how the younger generation feels? I would love to hear their perspective. I think people should be able to self-identify as they decide is best for […]
Don’t wanna be in the race
Marie Abaya, Seattle, WA. No choice.
White choir weekly sings black gospel
Merrile Sing, Seattle, WA. A predominantly white choir in Seattle has built relationships with multi-ethnic communities and raised funds for the needy in the past 10 years by singing African-American gospel music. Gospel music, through its message and interactive call-and-response nature, opened a door. Since its inception, the University Presbyterian Church (UPC) Gospel Choir, located […]
Chinese or American? Does it matter
Tiffany L. Seattle, WA
Responsible parenting is critical to empowerment
Bill Kreager Seattle, WA
Skin white, soul rainbow, accept me
Heather Melberg, Renton, WA. I am born and raised in Seattle. Lived in Japan my junior year of high school. Fascinated with all races and cultures and our stories of now and the past.
No one else chooses my identity.
Natalie, Seattle, WA. My grandmother never got to pass for white. She was sent to indian boarding school. 50 years later, I grew up in white suburbia, where no one assumed I was Native or even mixed-race. I self-identify as Native, I speak Chahta, I participate as a tribal citizen, I carry on the family […]
We choose fear over love everyday.
Mike, Seattle, WA.
Double closet for gay black men
Chris Porter, Seattle, WA. Living in two worlds where aceptance is difficult gives way to the double closet for many gay black men.
Personal Identity Creates Community And Conflict.
Ty Pethe, Seattle, WA. For better or worse, we are social creatures that innately create groups of people like us. Whether it’s race, nationalism, gender, sex, ethnicity, economic class, sexual preference, religion, culture, age, sub-culture, political identity, philosophical identity, geographic identity, etc., we all tend to find value in our own (shared) identity. It tells […]
Do you make your own tortillas?
Norma Torres Addis, Seattle, WA. The first time I heard this question, I thought it was funny. After hearing it a few times, it made me wonder. If my heritage is Mexican and I don’t know the first thing about making tortillas does that make me less of a Latina? So many times organizations I […]
Learn, feel, reflect, act, reflect. Repeat.
Mariela Barriga, Seattle, WA. Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges
But Your Not Really Black
Damme Getachew, Seattle, WA. My parents are from Ethiopia and so I self-identify as Ethiopian. I’m frequently asked “Where are you from?” as if being a person of color means that I was born somewhere other than the United States. Aren’t we past that?
I’m brown, therefore I am invisible
Raúl Sánchez, Seattle, WA. Racial profiles are not AMERICAN, I am!
Once uneducated/naive. I’m changing that.
Jordyn Ducotey, Seattle, WA. Recent events have really made me challenge my own thoughts and the perceptions that I have been taught. I consciously make an effort to expose myself to the injustices that are occuring in the world around me. I actively seek stories and look into them instead of listening to what my […]
You’re nice for a “white” girl
Colleen Schwab, Seattle, WA. I grew up in a very diverse area of CA where many children were first generation immigrants, and many children were of multi-racial backgrounds, mostly middle to lower class families. And my whole family has grown up with and around people from many different backgrounds. So I had no issue trying […]
Do you want some BLACK COFFEE?
James Johnson, Seattle, WA. One of my white peer teachers asked each black student if they wanted some BLACK COFFEE upon entering her class. Each student said no thank you. She asked them again with the emphasis on BLACK COFFEE. The student was 13 years old. This occurred in 2012 not 1932.
Are you Mexican or Irish today?
Erin Murphy Seattle, WA
Be what you want to see
Hunter Ventoza, Seattle, WA. If you want everyone to so something, you must start the way!
“But you’re not like other Mexicans.”
Tom Vásquez, Seattle, WA. I was in high school when this happened. I’m a son of a Mexican-American, so I’m 50% Mexican blood. 50% French-Canadian and English. When I was in high school, I was struggling to understand what it meant to be Mexican-American. The other Mexican kids in my school … well, the ones […]
I’m tired of being the “Other”!
Kevin Stordahl, Seattle, WA. Every time I fill out important documents they ask for my “race” and every single time they do I wonder a couple things; one, why do they need to know that? And two, where is my category? I have never considered myself one race or another. I have always just felt […]
I hate being called white girl
Alexa Fay, Seattle, WA. I dance at a predominately black dance studio, and anyone who sees my friends there is quick to point out that I look different from everyone else. I wish they cared more about my personality than my skin color.
He said half-breed; I said hapa.
Elisa Mader, Seattle, WA.
Quiet Asian Pacific Americans…….hell no
Alan Sugiyama, Seattle, WA.
You may not touch my hair
Aphrodyi Antoine, Seattle, WA.
Black men are worth very little.
Chris Porter, Seattle, WA.
I’m only White on the outside.
Clara Krumin, Seattle, WA.
Tell me what you really think
Shahab John Sharify, Seattle, WA. Those six words sum up what I am thinking at that precise moment when I’ve told someone, who is curious about my ethnic background, that “I’m Iranian.”
Young black gang kids scare America.
David Evans, Seattle, WA. People equate young black gang members with crime and trouble… I was watching the PBS special and when the young black guys were speaking I felt they were in gangs and up to no good. You need to change the image of the young male black gang image or you will […]
Knocked Down, But Got Back Up.
Victoria Long, Seattle, WA. I have experienced racism at a young age, but no matter what they said, I forgave them in the end.
My “ah-ha”: race is socially constructed!
Jack Bautsch Seattle, WA The RACE exhibit at the Seattle Center in late 2013 was a real eye-opener for me, a white male. What previously seemed like clear distinctions between races became, after experiencing the exhibit, much more nuanced and arranged along a continuum. I feel more kinship with POC than before seeing the exhibit.
“I am chocolate Mama is ice-cream”
Naghmeh Moshtael Portland, OR These are my daughter’s words. We live in a world of different race, culture and heritage. My husband in African American, born in Seattle and raised in Compton, CA. I am originally from Iran, raised in Cameroon (Central Africa) and now living in the US. My daughter is adopted from Ethiopia. […]
Layers of hate, culture of fear
Eric Embrey Seattle, WA
A Peabody for The Race Card Project
The Race Card Project Receives Peabody Honor Respected Journalist and Author Michele Norris Grateful for Recognition and the Opportunity for Dialogue that the Award Provides (Washington D.C./April 4, 2014) – The Race Card Project received a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in electronic communications for turning a pejorative phrase into a productive and […]
Equity is not equality. Keep thinking.
Shang-Ju Li Seattle, WA
What if we all got along?
Victoria Bernstein Seattle, WA I remember Rodney King’s exhausted cry after days of the LA riots and the question bubbled up.
Our similiarities greatly outweigh our differences.
Robin A. Schneider, Seattle, WA. Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges
A cloak behind which people hide
Nathen, Seattle, WA. Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges You are what you make of yourself. There will always be those that will tear you down, call you names seek to defame you, they are not important. What is important is what you choose to do with your lot in […]
I’m only Asian when it’s convenient
Anonymous Seattle, WA
Why am I always somewhere inbetween?
Anna Catlin Baker, Seattle, WA. Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges I was adopted when I was 1 year(s) old from Southeastern China by a single Caucasian woman. I found out later in life that my birthparents are actually Vietnamese. I was raised “white”, American, but I look Asian. When […]
Not unless your ancestors owned mine
Solveig Whittle Woodinville, WA In 1992 I moved to Seattle and began working at a new job. The first week I saw in the company email roster that someone else had the same last name as I did. I dialed his extension and introduced myself as a new employee. My last name is not common […]
Black dad. White mom. White skin.
Courtney Hudak Seattle, WA Sometimes it feels lonely.
Always, what are you? Long story.
Mariko Lockhart, Seattle, WA. Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges My dad was black, born in Panama, as my grandfather from Monserrat went there to work on the Canal. My grandmother was from Jamaica. They moved to Chicago where my dad grew up on the South Side. My mom’s parents […]
Reconcile slave-holding past with future.
Pete Holmes, Seattle, WA. Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges
I’m Korean, Jewish, both, neither? American.
Benjamin Donguk Lukoff, Seattle, WA. Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges Biracial and multiracial people often feel left out of the conversation on race. I’d like to see that change.
Frustrated, Aggravated, Discouraged by Black Stereotypes
Kern, Seattle, OR. Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges With each passing decade (now 5 of them)I have reflected on whether the issue of race has improved, declined or remained the same. I must say that it seems that for every step forward (a President of color, women and PEO […]
Stop and see Race in America
Josie Watanabe Seattle, WA Too many people believe that our work is done. Or why do we still need affirmative action? I wish for everyone to stop, listen and look around so that we can really take a closer look at race relations in our country and find real ways we can keep moving forward […]
I’m not pretending to be Latina
Meghan Morales Seattle, WA Even though I’m mixed race (Latina with Puerto Rican & Dominican heritage & White), my lighter toned skin provides me the privilege to ‘pass’ most days. I’m often mistaken for someone whose sole race is White from those who do not know me. Because of this, it was especially shocking to […]
People often fear what is unfamiliar.
Joyce Hansen Seattle, WA
Once had dreadlocks. Now know better.
Susan Tsoglin Seattle, WA At the time, I was a white female college student in a mainly white university. Following the disaster that was the reaction to NineEleven, I became more political. I became involved in protests and rallies, doing educational flash mobs, being “alternative.” I was surrounded by white hippie culture, which had re-appropriated […]
Better to offend than not discuss
Joe Mallahan Seattle, WA As a white man raised in the United States, I have, by no choice of my own, indelible racist perspectives ingrained in me. While my logic and my civic values reject this racism, it doesn’t change the fact that my brain clicks to a different place when I’m interacting with an […]
White skin trumps my Mexican name
Bailey Seattle, WA
40 years celebrating MLK at E Madison’s Mt. Zion
Posted on January 17, 2014 by jseattle Friday, dignitaries, students and the community filled Mt. Zion for the 40th year of celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday at the 19th and Madison Baptist church. 53 years ago, King visited Zion pastor Reverend Samuel B. McKinney and spoke to thousands in Seattle. McKinney, now near 90, […]
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